Thursday, December 01, 2005

Red Sox - Acquired Van Buren

Why use for $300,000 what you can get for $4,000,000? Cubs fans shouldn’t be too depressed - if Van Buren finds success in the majors, they’ll just buy him back in 6 years to block the next useful middle reliever they have on hand.

Van Buren isn’t going to wow anyone with his fastball, but he gets a lot out of his low-90s fastball and has been a much improved player since becoming a full-time reliever following his exile to the indies. I’m not convinced in the least that the Red Sox will actually use him rather than stick him at Pawtucket and sign whatever reliever the Yankees release if the need arises, but I appreciate the effort. Van Buren will never be make the Jays or Mets regret spending dough on Ryan and Wagner, but he should fashion out a career as a league-averageish reliever

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As I said in the Kinderhook thread, if the Cubs needed to shed folks off their 40man (which they do), I would have hoped it would have been guys like Wellemeyer or Mitre -- who are out of options. They (and now the Red Sox) have 3 option years left on Van Buren and they can use him as a replacement to be parked at the Iowa/Pawtucket level.

You know Dusty was never going to use Van Buren anyhow. What does it matter if he spent three more years in Iowa? And Mitre/Wellemeyer will be shipped out soon, most likely. The moment the Cubs add Furcal, etc.

You know Dusty was never going to use Van Buren anyhow. What does it matter if he spent three more years in Iowa?

Because when Dusty decides to get vindictive after Wuertz or Novoa walk a few guys in an inning (which will likely happen), it will be handy to have a guy like Van Buren around to call up. Instead, that guy will probably be a stiff like Koronka.

And Mitre/Wellemeyer will be shipped out soon, most likely.

You would think. My point is that I would ship them out before deciding to ship out Van Buren -- he would be about 4th on my list (releasing Macias at the top, of course).

dJf, the options is probably what got the Sox interested in the first place, along with Van Buren's stats. I'm sure they called and said, "Mr. Hendry, in a few days you'll be losing this guy on waivers, so why not let us offer you a spare part who won't clog the bases for him?" Hendry can see the writing on the wall, and it's better that he gets something for Van Buren instead of losing him on waivers in a week.

Possibly, levski, but not necessarily. I'm not convinced that Van Buren was/is among the first guys that the Cubs would/should waive -- he was just the guy the Red Sox wanted.

This raises the question of whether the Cubs tried to peddle Wellemeyer. They could have done this and found no takers (at which point I might consider outrighting/waiving him rather than dealing the optionable Van Buren), but I neither know nor assume this to be true.

I also don't assume that the lack of options makes Wellemeyer untradeable. It would be possible, for instance, that a team might value Wellemeyer to the point that they wouldn't want to risk another team having waiver priority. The Cubs were able to deal Jon Leicester to the Rangers just a few weeks ago, under similar circumstances.

I thought I saw a rumor of Wellemeyer being on his way out of CHN as well?

Yeah, I hear he may/may not be going to Colorado. Who knows. If it turns out that they deal Wellemeyer and Mitre and dump Macias, I suppose the order of the deals doesn't matter all that much, but other than the Furcal decision, we can only assume the Cubs priorities match-up with the chronology.

Well, the Cubs already have four catchers on the 40-man, so I assume Perez is out. I also don't recall Kolb finishing last year particularly well, and the Cubs just satisfied their reliever fetish, so that excludes Reitsma.

Judging by Dusty's interview this morning, to be a "proven veteran," all one has to do is:

(a) be over the age of 30; and
(b) be hot over the most recent 2-3 months.

In practice, (a) is true. (b) is more like "have been hot for at least two weeks of the last two seasons," though the standards can be lessened if there was a shorter hot streak while the player played for Dusty.

If the Rangers want to continue to keep taking some of the Cubs players, they could always trade Mark DeRosa for Mitre. He's tough and gritty, and, not too mention, Buck gave him some time in the outfield last year so he has to potential to block more prospects in the Cubs system. Ladies and gentlemen, I think we found the latest member to the F-Troop.